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A number of Witness documentaries and their makers have attracted international critical acclaim and attention.
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Rodrigo Vazquez's (Bethnal Films) heartbreaking tale of two young boys toiling in a Bolivian tin mine has been nominated for several awards.
Child Miners was shortlisted for the Silver Wolf Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2008 and at the Guadalajara Film Festival in 2009.
It was nominated for the best documentary at the Basel-Karsruhe Idee Suisse Prize 2009, at the Thessaloniki Film Festival 2009, at the DerHumalc 2009 Film Festival in Buenos Aires, and at the Cypros film Festival 2009.
Rodrigo Vazquez won the documentary Grand Prize at the Montreal Human Rights Festival 2009 for Child Miners.
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Tom Evans and George Azar's insight for Flashback Television into the risks and difficulties that constitute school life in the West Bank won the prestigious 2009 Royal Television Society educational award for adult training.
It was also awarded the Japan Prize in The President of NHK Prize in 2008.
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Witness returns to Nablus for the final months of the academic year, to complete the year-in-the-life observation of two schools under Israeli occupation.
Return to Nablus was nominated for International Emmy Awards in 2009.
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Amie Williams' (Balmaiden Films) Voices of the Heart looks at a new Arapaho native immersion school on the remote Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and the broader issues of immersion language education in indigenous communities in the US.
Voices of the Heart was nominated for Best Documentary at the Santa Fe Film Festival 2009.
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Hair India by Raffaele Brunetti and Marco Leopardi (B&Bfilm) follows the journey of a young Indian woman's hair - donated to a temple to then be converted into exquisite hair extensions in Italy. It examines the cult of beauty in the era of globalisation.
Hair India won the International Premios Ondas Award 2009 as Best International Programme, the film received the Jury Prize at the Guangzhou Documentary Festival 2009, and was awarded the Special Award at the Mediterraneo Video Festival 2010.
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Gerald Sperling's Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland about the unknown legacy of Soviet nuclear testing in Kazakhstan was number one in the social/political category in December at Saskatchewan Showcase.
At the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television Rob King, the director of Silent Bombs, was nominated for Best Direction in a Documentary Programme, and Matt Phillips, the cinematographer, was nominated for Best Photography in a Documentary Programme or Series.
Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland won five awards at the Yorkton Film Festival 2010, including the 2010 Best of Festival - and was the first Saskatchewan-made film ever to receive such an honour.
The film also received the awards for Best Social Political Documentary, Best of Saskatchewan Ruth Shaw award, Rob King for Best Director Non-Fiction, Carrie-May Siggins for Best Research at the Yorkton Film Festival.
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Sue Sudbury's (Sequoia Films) Sari Stories is the extraordinary story of young women in rural India who are being trained to make videos.
It is an unprecedented view of a world of child marriage, child labour and domestic abuse, but also a look at how the women use the cameras to challenge traditional ways of life and to transform their lives.
Sari Stories won the Media Innovation Awards 2010 for the best programme in the Television category.
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| Qadir - An Afghan Ulysses |
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Qadir - An Afghan Ulysses by Anneta Papathanassiou, produced by Haris Padouvas and Photini Economopoulou, tells the story of an Afghan refugee in Greece who decides to return to his country after eight years to search for his family.
Qadir won the Japan Foundation President's Prize at the Japan Prize 2009, the International Contest for Educational Media. It received the Best Documentary Award at the Roma Fiction Fest 2008, and the Best Documentary Award Miradas.doc at the Guia de Isora International Documentary Film Festival 2009 in Spain.
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Sugartown: The Day After by Kimon Tsakiris and Rea Apostolides tells the story of how a small community in Greece and its environment fall victim to the forces of 'disaster capitalism'.
The documentary won the Bronze Medal at the Grand Prix International URTI du documentaire d'Auteur 2010 and was shortlisted for the final phase of the International Prize for Mediterranean Documentary and Reportage (CMCA).
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Chris Mitchell's moving series of films on the attempts to give the chance of a university education to the brightest minds in India's poorest state, Bihar, was awarded the audience award for best documentary at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and the River to River Festival in Florence in 2008.
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In the days before the storming of the occupied Red Mosque in Islamabad in the summer of 2007 Rageh Omaar and his team were the last TV crew inside the mosque.
This exclusive coverage earned an Emmy nomination in 2008 for Farrah Durrani of Midwinter Productions. |
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Foreign reporters in conflict zones often rely on local 'fixers' - people who earn a living helping journalists get their stories.
George Azar's poignant account of the dangers facing Palestinian journalists in Gaza was nominated for the prestigious Rory Peck Award for Features.
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Juan Medina has expertly captured the despair of failed asylum seekers from Mali.
Justin Webster's expert profile of the photographer and his work has subsequently gained critical acclaim.
Selected for Prix Europa, Photographing the Exodus was a winner at the Festival International Grand Reportage in France, second at the Festival Internacional Santiago Alvaraz in Cuba, and the winner of the "Manos Unidades" prize at the XIX Concurso Television in Spain in 2007.
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One boy's personal mission to clear the cluster bombs scattered across his native southern Lebanon was expertly captured by Katia Saleh of Batoota Films.
Deadly Playground has been touring since 2007 with the International Human Rights Watch Film Festival. |
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It is a hot summer in Lebanon, as Beirut-born filmmaker Katia Saleh documents how the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in July 2006 war affected individual Lebanese families.
Beirut under Siege is the winner of Best Editing at the Siole e Luna Doc Festival in Palermo, Italy.
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Encounter Point, a unique film about hope, courage, and vital Palestinian and Israeli grassroots peace efforts, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Recontres Film Festival in Montreal, both in 2006.
It was also awarded the Best Musical Score Award at the Bend Film Festival, the 2006 Spirit of Freedom Award at the Bahamas Film Festival, and was mentioned in the Feature Documentary category at the 2010 Fargo Film Festival.
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Raffaele Brunetti tells the story of a t-shirt and what happens if you give your second-hand clothes to an African charity.
Mitumba, the Second-Hand Road received the Globo d'oro award for Best Documentary in 2005; it won the Award Legambiente at the Torino Cinema Ambiente 2005. It is the winner of the Napoli Film Festival 2007 and earned the Cinema del Reale Award 2006.
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Alfred Bama works at the Limbe Wildlife Centre, a sanctuary for young primates and great apes orphaned by the illegal bush-meat trade.
His dedication to the gorillas takes him from the gorilla sanctuary in Cameroon to a zoo in Northern England.
Filmmaker Nicky Chalk followed Bama on his adventure and the film won the UWE Children's Choice Panda Award at the Wildscreen Film Festival 2008, which is widely regarded as the most prestigious wildlife film festival in the world.
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